


Detente

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fiction, M/M, Relationship(s), Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-22
Updated: 2009-01-22
Packaged: 2018-11-20 21:11:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11343261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Detente

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Detente

## Detente

### by Flutesong

##### [Story Headers]

  


Dtente 

Flutesong 

Mulder/Krycek slash 

Adults only 

No copy-write issues, this is fan fiction for entertainment only. 

Author's note: 

I started this story back at the very beginning of my fascination with M/K. So, that is 2001. This is the beginning section of a 500K story, which goes on to include other large sections; War, Peace and Future and took almost 2 years to write. But, now I finally feel the urge to share this much. The writing is ambitiously amateur, but I am not changing it because it works with the high intensity of the emotions in the characters. Besides, if I fooled with it, I am sure it would be worse rather than better. 

I loved this pairing so much, still do, but not with naivety that CC would resolve the X Files story with sense. It is my first and pretty much, only fandom from then until now. The ending of Biani's Nick Lea/Krycek LJ is very sad to me. However, I want to thank her for the excellent years she has provided us with NL info and tidbits. I dedicate finally posting this to her. Thank You Biani. 

This is my baby, I hope you will enjoy it and treat the mistakes gently. 

* * *

Dtente 

Part 1 

The final treaty negotiations were held in a most elegant setting: Chateau in the Alps, thick crimson carpets, Renoirs, Degas, Matisses, and Picassos, mahogany tables... 

No souvenir pens, no papers, no copyist, or recordings. Just well dressed power people and cultured voices, sealing a fate for the People of Earth that the People of Earth never knew was predetermined on their behalf. 

Ha! Alex Krycek was amused. Here among these fine folks, in his own $5000 Seville Row tailored suit, he wondered if they thought all the accoutrements of civilized society really mattered or if, like the art on that walls, (looted - no doubt - from another People of the Earth 50 years ago) they only believed in the presentation rather than peace itself. 

It was fitting, in its way, he was certainly more Picasso than Matisse, an arm here (yellow), a heart there (gray), piece of soul upside down (green), another piece over there in the corner of the canvas (burnt orange). 

Bah! What had he really expected of civilized society and its norms anyway? They had not wallowed in a mud of oil, blood and terror and betrayal. They had not felt the presence of the slime of a million it-things saturate their pores. Fuck! Stop now! It's over. Over, over, over and he had lived and came out the other side a fucking hero. 

Alex Krycek, hero, took a deep breath of the rarified air, sat back in the damask chair and looked at the other Man-of-the-Hour seated across the table. 

Ah! Mulder. Now there was a work or art for sure. Right at home in a perfectly cut slate gray Armani. A Clean-shaven, indolent pose (which fooled no one) barely covering a real intent to pounce. Just like the Degas dancers on the wall; poised in their barre warm-ups, bloody torn feet the cost of their elegance, arms stretched to hyper-kink so that the hands, the hands, those beautiful hands could plead in agonized come-hither and believe in my dance. 

Krycek knew he believed had always believed in Mulder's dance. But, how could he clap one-handed, here at the final bows of Mulder's triumphant ovation. It would not do, pounding the table with a closed fist like a peasant. Not here. Not now. Not ever again. 

Yeah, right. Mulder, do you even take into account that you might have never really danced alone? 

Detente  
Part 2 

Fox Mulder felt the little toe twitch on his right foot move up and up until the knee was going, bouncing along from the ball of his foot. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Samantha always called him on it at the dinner table. "Foooox" she would whine, `stop jiggling, it makes the whole room shake.' Mom would send a repressive glare his way on her way back and forth to the kitchen and Dad ...Dad would grow still; place his cutlery precisely on the edge of his plate. No, no, no. Not now. Not here. Not ever again. 

Mulder forced his attention back to the drawing room tableau, President of A there, Secretary General of B there, Prime Minister of C to the right and Commander of the Whatever Special Forces across and to the left. A flash of the old Steve Allen Show sped through his mind, an episode where they were all historical figures from differing era and ages arguing about Constantine. If he remembered correctly Allen's wife, Jayne Meadows, was Catherine the Great. 

They were all discussing him. Nothing new there, wasn't it always "all about you, Mulder?" He felt a grimace cover his lower jaw, which seemed to make the Vice President of D's voice raise a half of an octave. What the fuck were they saying, come on Mulder, come on focus. Okay, deep breath, let it out slowly. They were yammering the old refrain: No. No, the public cannot be allowed to know that aliens walked among us. No. The scientific advances left behind by the aliens cannot be let loose all at once. Yes. We know that the medical technology alone can cure millions, but the public would not understand the lack of R&D. Yes. We know that it doesn't seem to be ethical, Mr. Mulder. Nevertheless, the People of the Earth need to be fed in small doses of reality. You wouldn't want anarchy would you Mr. Mulder. Panic in the streets? No. The world cannot ever know about the Consortium, what would that do to the credibility of governments? People have to be led Mr. Mulder, they are children Mr. Mulder, they have to be protected, Mr. Mulder. Mulder let it all become a dull gray roar. I am right. I was right. I did it. I knew it, became a shrill excited mantra in pulsing in time with his bobbing knee. I was right. 

Out of the din a small hinge rasp caught his attention. Mulder looked up and directly across the table. Alex Fucking Krycek. A grim, dark nano-second of humor shook him, aha! The Rat squeaked. 

Mulder settled his knee, muted the officious doublespeak, shut up the shrill self-approving refrain, and looked at Krycek. Looked a long time and felt quietude settle over him. 

This Rat, His Rat had not squeaked in a long, long time. 

This Rat was Mr. Krycek, Hero. His Rat spoke in low toned precise terminology and everybody listened. Mr. Krycek had strapped a frozen Alien Fetus on his chest and shot down an Alien Foo Fighter with a "Bad" Alien and a "Good" Rebel Alien aboard in the woods adjacent to Wiekamp Air Force Base. Mr. Krycek, ice pick attached to one hand and microwave emitter stun-gun in the other hand, made both the goddamned aliens stand absolutely still until he, Mulder, raced from the empty truck bed into the crash site's flame and firelight. Mr. Krycek, who handed the gun to him and said in absolute command "Keep them covered Mulder." Mr. Krycek who drew the sharp, sharp blade from his bootleg and slashed the ropes tied around the fetus and laid it gently on the ground. Alex Krycek, who knelt down before the fetus, raised the knife in a fire lit backlight from Hell and said "Mulder we have been wrong all along." 

Mulder felt the gooseflesh coldly pimple along his neck once again. 

Alex Krycek, Solomon. Who would have thought it? Mulder allowed more memory to surface. 

"Mulder we have always been misled. We have never been the ones about to be enslaved by an alien race. We have been the slaveholders. They were visitors Mulder, for eon's just visitors. Until the accidental crash at Roswell and the fetus was found. This...this fetus is all they ever wanted back. Preserving their genome from contamination has been their only goal. Both warring factions of them, except that the old bastards didn't know there were two sides until now. They were using the ones they knew about to serve their own agenda to rule the world." Alex looked up at him then with all the hope and the trust and with the fate of humankind resting at his feet. "Mulder we have to stop the alien war, we have to let them go home and fight their battles there. We have to give them the proof back, your proof, your Truth." Krycek shook the sweat from his forehead and Mulder saw the beads of moisture fly diamond bright into the dark night behind him. 

"I am going to do this Mulder. With or without your approval or understanding, I am going to do this. But, I wanted you here, needed you here, because, after this you will have to tell the world and decide whom to trust and what to do. The rest of the way is yours alone. I am a soldier who once obeyed the wrong Generals. That is all I have ever been." Alex looked at the two silent aliens and brought down the knife to the chest of the fetus. "I will give you," nodding left, "one half minus one finger and I will give you," nodding right, "the other half minus one finger and he," Alex said, staring straight at Mulder "will keep the two fingers until you and your kind agree to leave this planet." 

Alex Krycek bisected the fetus, exactly. He precisely sliced a digit from each limb, removed an emergency cold pack from beneath his jacket and wrapped the future of life, as we know it very, very calmly into the cold pack and handed it, with utmost gravity, to him. 

That was eight months ago. Mulder shook himself in his seat awakening from this reverie of remembrance. Eight months spent without a personal word spoken to Alex since that night, not one. 

Dtente  
Part 3 

Four days later Mulder and Krycek waited for a summons back inside the drawing room meeting. This day would be the final day. All the loose ends knotted, all the pacts made, as much Understanding as was possible between the Rulers of the World and the Alien Concession. 

Still in silence, thoughts tumbled between them unspoken. 

Mulder, conduit and chief negotiator to the Alien/Earth Understanding was almost out of a job. Sign the deal, metaphorically, of course. Return a couple of appendages and that was that. 

Mulder was amused. It really was more like an episode of Star Trek than he could have ever imagined. The Prime Directive, Gene Roddenberry must have been a hell of a genius. The aliens had held firm. No more technology, no more alien DNA on Earth ever, no more sentient "oil" monitoring mankind. No more "hybrid" experiences allowed amongst themselves. They would keep strict control. No more visitors to earth every eon or so. Every one of the Aliens was going home. 

They had achieved a Dtente amongst themselves as well. With the threat of a contaminated genome destroyed and voided, they were able to come to terms. Mulder allowed his amusement to grow. They really were Next Generation aliens. Their communication, a collective thought and now rejoined once again to return to the "hive" for themselves. Mulder chuckled, laughter near to the surface. His fucking Holy Grail of Truth was, indeed, oh yes indeedy, stranger than fiction. 

Krycek experienced a nervy twinge of disquiet. Mulder just might be losing it. Why in the hell was he chortling to himself over there? 

What about all the unanswered questions that were still `out there'? What's my line? What's my line? Would the real Samantha ever stand up? Aw, shit. Mulder was just being inexplicable mystery Mulder, nothing new there. 

But, he felt the unease grow more urgent regardless. Mulder, I have unanswered questions too. Who is your father, who is mine? You think I killed your father what if instead he was mine. You don't get it yet, Mulder. They played Ducks and Drakes with the DNA tech. His wife, no his wife, yes your daughter, no mine. A perfect conspiracy. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Inbreeding/cross breeding, that's the way to put a damper on betrayal. All one happy family tied up in a blood red bow. 

Krycek knew he was going to speak first. Just knew it. We didn't take a vow of silence that night Mulder. You just said, when the two aliens went bye- bye, see you soon, in a flash of mothership lights. "You stay right where I can see you Krycek. Keep that knife in your boot and your hands where I can see them and you fucking stay right here with me." He just hadn't known Mulder meant stay with him all the way. 

You paused then, Mulder, hands extended to the heavens, you whirled, Mulder, in a paroxysm of unalloyed rage/grief/joy. Truth, Truth. Truth. Proof. Proof. Proof. You danced. Your feet pounding the ground in a dance so instinctively ancient that I thought, Mulder, I thought, no, I felt a surge of exultation spasm through me too. It was more intense than any orgasmic release ever could be. You never invited me to your dance Mulder, but I, Alex Fucking Krycek, provided the music for the grand finale. 

Krycek allowed a silent sigh to escape his throat, acknowledged a passing wish that the last eight months had been spent dancing another kind of primal dance with Mulder and decided he could keep his tongue in his head and try to stay quiet after all. 

Mulder sighed audibly. He raised his eyes to the painting on the wall. It was a large painting and screamed in red and black. He realized he had never seen this one before. Matador or a torero? He couldn't remember the proper word. But then, there was nothing proper about this work of art at all. The billowing red cape, flung open like a sail on a ship at sea, knives and swords impaling the broad back of the enraged bull, the picador poised in the hand of the matador, ready to stab, ready to gouge, ready to eviscerate. The matador, implacable, beautiful, aesthete, lip curled open over teeth in the feral gleam of triumph, leg running with his own gore. The bull had blooded the matador too. 

Mulder stared enraptured. 

Krycek looked at Mulder and then followed Mulder's stare to the painting. It was tripe, overblown, and overdone. It was just another romanticized version of death in red and black. Why can't artists ever think of some other color? White, like the Japanese or something. Krycek looked back at Mulder staring at the painting and back at the painting again. Fuck, does he think I'm some Spanish version of the angel of death? 

"Mulder," Krycek said in a tumble of unplanned words "do you think that Matador is me?" 

"No. No. Maybe. It's the bull, Alex, the bull is me," Mulder replied without hesitation, as if they had just spoken a moment ago instead of enduring eight months of silence. 

Krycek looked back at the painting. The bull? Krycek felt a bubble forming in his throat and wasn't sure if it was laughter or tears. "Mulder that bull is nowhere near finished. That bull could tear the matador and the arenas to shreds, burst out the gate, and make it to the pasture with enough energy to hump three cows before sunset. The matador doesn't have a chance against that rage and determination. He's used up. He's lame and bleeding." 

Mulder turned bedazzled eyes to Alex and stared right at him. "Bull and matador have done battle over and over. Sometimes the bull wins and sometimes the matador triumphs. Sometimes both of them are so bloodied that they die in the mud of the corrida. But Alex," Mulder said in a low, sibilant whisper of intensity, "sometimes both the bull and the matador fight so long and so fiercely and spill so much blood that the crowd demands a victory for both and they get to live. They get to live." 

"Mulder," Krycek asked through what were now, definitely tears in his throat, "how to they live after the blood and death of the corrida? What do they live for if there are no more battles to be won or lost?" 

Mulder stepped a step closer, stuffed his hands in his pockets with absolute disregard for the cut of his expensive slacks, lowered his head slightly to look directly eye-to-eye with Krycek and began to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Alex," he said in voice filled with astonishment, "Alex," he repeated in a voice full of conviction and certainty, "they live in peace. That's all. They get to live in peace." 

When the door to the anteroom swung open on well-oiled hinges and interrupted the conversation, Krycek had such an intense longing to blow the guy away that he could feel the gun in his hand. 

"What?" they both said in unison. 

"Gentlemen," the attach from Somewhere said in the same bland voice of attachs from Everywhere, "the council has concluded the Understanding." 

Dtente  
Part 4 

No pictures. No flags. No anthems. No cameras, and no microphones. 

The final moment was actually rather quiet if not exactly mundane. They all trouped outside to the garden and then out onto the wide green lawn. Mulder undid his shirt and un-taped the small package he had fixed to his abdomen. Krycek did the same, handed his small package to Mulder, and stepped back a few paces. This was the finality between them as well, the end of Mulder's insistence that Krycek hold onto one of the fingers while he held on to the other, the end of the bond of partnership, of being mated together, with each other and fate. Mulder held the two small bundles in one hand and waited, face turned towards the sun humming "Pack Up Your Troubles in an Old Kit Bag." By the time he got to `smile, Boys, Smile' a light brighter than the sun came near and enveloped his hand and with the slightest of breezes went away again leaving his hand empty. 

They all simply stood still for a while and gradually, a few old enemies and a few old friends joined arm in arm and went back into the chateau, and the rest of the Somebody's went inside too. 

Mulder and Krycek buttoned up their shirts and leaving the tails untucked remained on the lawn. 

Krycek let the thought flow through his mind that he should turn to Mulder, offer his hand for a shake goodbye, and wondered if this time Mulder would take it. Then he decided no, Mulder had never shaken his hand hello in the first place and so he wouldn't offer it now. 

Mulder watched a cloud reshape itself in the sky. His first thought was not of peace, past, or aliens. His first thought was how would he go on if Krycek, his partner in silence, in pain, in blood and betrayal, in passion and redemption was to move on now without him. 

He knew he was no ephemeral cloud to keep reshaping until it was absorbed into they sky but he was sure that if Krycek simply went he might well disappear too. 

"Mulder" Krycek said, "My flight out isn't until early tomorrow. I'm gonna change and go for a walk. So, if I don't see you at dinner, I'll say good-bye now." Krycek paused, took a deep, deep breath of the clear air that was supposed to be freedom, and said simply, "Good bye Mulder," turned and walked back toward the chateau. 

Late that evening, Mulder came into Krycek's room via the balcony and through unlocked bay windows. Hearing Alex taking a shower, he sat down uninvited in the upholstered wingback chair. He idly looked through the magazines, newspapers, and books stacked on the side table. He studiously ignored looking at the bed and wondered if he could possibly say all the things that he needed to say to Alex. 

Words, he knew words, he was virtual master in the word game. He had spent most of his adult life attempting to convince the world and himself of the impossible, the unthinkable, and the unbelievable. Nevertheless, he knew when the words counted the most he always seemed mute. Oh, he had even said the big words a few times; I need, I love, give me, please oh please, but the results were a mixed lot that in the end hadn't added up to anything momentous. This time, words were a precious commodity limited by the economy of Alex's imminent departure. 

He had no doubt that Alex would leave this time and leave for good. No more cryptic emails or surreptitious scribbled notes, no more dim alleys or tackles in his living room. No more guns jabbed in his ribs, handcuffs dragging him to unforeseen disasters or blindfolded drives through city streets to unknown destinations. No more, oh God, no more whispers in the thin light or darkest vellum of dozens of crummy motel room double beds. No more tastes or touches of hot, hot supple skin over trembling musculature of sweat and semen that fed his appetite for forbidden fruit and a life otherwise unlived: No more Eager Agent Alex, nervy and solicitous beside him in the bullpen, from days gone by long ago; No more Leather Tough Punk Krycek sweaty and scared in foreign airport terminals or frozen prison cells. No more Guerilla Rambo Alien Fighter who brought him inside the firestorm of truth, both alien and manmade, and who became and stayed Mr. Alex Krycek silent, secure, beside him. 

Mulder looked up, abruptly torn from his desperate internal review and watched Alex step, toweling robe untied, from the bathroom. 

Alex's head swiveled toward Mulder immediately, though Mulder had made so sound, he seemed to heave a silent breath and stepped fully into the bedroom. 

A smile, more weary than amused, crossed Alex's face and he said, "Usually I'm the one waiting for you to step out of the bath in some grimy hide-away. What are you doing here? What do you want?" 

"Talk, we need to talk," Mulder said and started to get up from the chair. 

Mulder stood and unable to resist the patina of damp skin, which was gleaming a dull golden pulse in Alex's neck, reached out and ran his fingers from chin to chest, letting them rest, splayed across his belly. He watched the pulse beat become faster, more pronounced and rhythmic and thought he felt the beat vibrate from gut to smooth damp silk through his fingers and become part of his breath. 

"You," Mulder barely choked out as he felt the oxygen level in his blood enrich itself in a rush. 

Alex was immobilized by Mulder's caress and tried to remember the million reasons he wasn't going to do this anymore. The fingers on his belly seemed to vibrate with Mulder's breath and all he could visualize were the dancers arching achingly for him to join the dance. He leaned into outstretched hand, knew that one more time, one last time, he was lost in the alchemy of Mulder music. 

Mulder felt the give of Alex's body toward him and thought no more of words or explanations or justifications. He just felt a bone deep breathtaking certainty of right, right; right this is right, we are right. Alex's mouth reached Mulder's lips first and he felt the luxury of welcome homecoming and exotic strangeness burst on his tongue all at once. Mulder's opened his mouth immediately and his other hand joined in the journey of rediscovering Alex's flesh, knocking the robe from his shoulders and arm, sliding along heated moist shoulder blades/torso/ass and up again running his lips/tongue/ teeth across Alex's mouth/chin/neck/shoulder and back again up across his mouth and to the other side. Mulder consumed the golden drops of saliva/water/sweat as if he had been dying of thirst for only this particular liquid concoction. Mulder began a new litany of words aloud and crashing whitewater fast against the rocks of his previous mute denial, "love you, give me, give you, need you, want you, God oh, God." He dragged his moving mouth/lips/teeth down Alex's chest/abs/belly and fell to his knees, hands grasping firm ass, opened his lips wide and took Alex into himself. 

Alex stood stunned by the onslaught of sensation and sound after a drought so long and so silent he had been sure that it would continue forever. His body was suddenly so sensate that he was sure his heart would jump from his chest. That it would beat on the floor in seismic quakes so loud and heavy that the earth beneath them would crack open and swallow them. Oh God, Mulder's mouth engulfed him and his knees gave out and his hand grabbed first on air then on tousled hair and he started to sink down, down into the torment of need/want/love/give me/take and into Mulder's hot wet mouth. 

Mulder steadied Alex's descent, following him down till his head hit the dense sapphire carpet. He let go of Alex's cock, pushed him onto his side, and rolled him onto his back and whispering, "Yes, yes, yes." He took the dripping root back into his mouth using his tongue now to wrap/slide and throat to drink/swallow until Alex gave in/up and came with an inarticulate cry that spoke of everything all at once. 

Mulder's mouth dripping and panting, "Please, please, please Alex," let loose the spent penis and spread Alex's legs wide, knees bent and laved the semen/saliva/sweat down the crease of Alex's ass fingers probing, loosening, entering, rose up and aiming his hard cock true, breached the firm opening, pushed in and thrusting twice/three/four times, came home. 

Pinned boneless beneath Mulder's breathless body, Alex felt slightly hysterical laughter begin to rise up. "Well," he spoke aloud to Mulder in a shaky voice, "that was a hell of a "talk" after all these months." 

Mulder made a sort of muffled squeaky groan into Alex's chest. 

Alex gave up and began to chuckle. He was shaking Mulder's prone body with each small tremor of his diaphragm. "Mulder, Mulder, didn't it ever occur to you to just say Alex, we have some unresolved issues to discuss or Alex, let's have coffee and find out how we go on from here, or even Alex, I know I have been a total, unmitigated ass for refusing to talk to you the better part of the last year but let's fuck our brains out tonight and talk in the morning?" 

Alex let the laughter, half hysterical-half chagrined, spill from his throat, "I think I've been ravished," he said in an attempt of a deadpan drawl and began to laugh in earnest. 

Mulder wanted to feel insulted, he really did. Didn't Alex understand what he'd been trying to say with his body? Instead of indignation he realized that Alex had never giggled in his presence, let alone laughed in that happy young helpless sort of way ever; before, during or after sex. Mulder kept the pointed reply from taking shape, continued to lie there, sprawled across what he now knew was the body of his beloved and let joy reshape him. 

Alex's laughter tapered off. He stayed flat, quietly listening to Mulder's breaths take on the cadence of sleep and thus, avoid having their conversation once more. He thought back over the handful of times Mulder had ever slept in his company or even the fewer times the two of them actually slept together after they'd become lovers. When they'd became enemies, in Mulder's view, how neither of them had ever seemed to sleep at all and instead just lurched hollowed eyed from blood spattered encounter to semen splattered encounter back to fists, blood and hate filled encounter. Not a simple relationship Alex thought, a ghost of humor tickling his fancy, not a simple relationship at all. What was it now? Alex continued to muse, this `relationship.' 

He was certain Mulder now believed that this tidal wave of passionate lovemaking solved many of the issues between them but he was not so sure. Mulder was always passionate; passionate believer, impassioned hater, filled with the passion of awe and wonder in the paranormal. Therefore, now Mulder was passionate about him, it wasn't the first time. So what? Tomorrow there could be a new wonder, a new mystery, a once in a lifetime opportunity to discover something or even Scully approaching him with unreserved admiration in a topless bikini. Then poof! All that unalloyed passion for Krycek left for another day when he had time or more likely, left behind entirely. No, that wasn't really fair, Mulder never forgot him entirely just put him in a box labeled `enemy', `traitor', `coward', `cocksucker' or worse `silent standby' ready to be reopened when Mulder had a moment or an itch. 

Alex nudged Mulder in a not completely gentle manner and said, "Hey Mulder how about we get off the floor?" 

Mulder groaned and settled in more snuggly. 

Alex leveraged himself over, flopped Mulder onto the floor and carefully got to his feet, stretched, wondered if he had the energy to go to the bathroom, realized he had to go to the bathroom, came back out, with an evil grin, tossed a cold damp washcloth onto Mulder's chest, and got into bed. 

Mulder said, `shit," sort of swiped the cloth across his crotch, got to his feet, got into the bed, draped himself back over Alex, with a smile of well-being and went back to sleep. 

Alex sighed, gave up, gave in and went to sleep too. 

Dtente  
Part 5 

Mulder was standing on the lawn, face turned towards the morning sky, when he heard footsteps coming near. `Alex,' he thought. 

However, it wasn't Alex coming towards him. Alex was standing absolutely still a few feet away staring at the approaching figure in profound shock. 

What the hell! Mulder looked across the grass and caught the same expression of bewilderment looking right back at him out of Alex's ashen face. 

Jeremiah Smith came closer and stopped. "Agent Mulder, Mr. Krycek," he enunciated distinctly in a calm voice, "A moment of your time?" 

"What are you doing here?" "You were all supposed to be gone!" Mulder and Krycek spoke with quick agitation. 

"I am the last. All the others have indeed departed," Mr. Smith answered and started walking away from the house, back across the lawn and to the benches at the edge of the wood, "We, I, just have one more thing to do and I will depart as well. Gentlemen, we owe you a great debt. While most of my kind exists in a different type of sentient perception than do the beings of this planet, we have come to understand, in some small way, the workings of human minds and sensibilities. Those of us, who became human hybrids or interfaced with humans for a long time, have had a closer relationship than was wise." 

Smith, Mulder, and Krycek arrived at the edge of the woods. They all sat, Smith in the middle, on a shaded semicircle bench. 

"I have been aware of the two of you for the entirety of your lives," Smith continued "As progeny of the original perpetrators of the crimes against us you have held a special interest for me. Now, since you are the only two of these offspring who are aware of the events regarding those crimes and since you chose the path to free us rather than continue the in the way of your fathers. I have decided to allow you to benefit from that choice and our association." 

`Benefit'. Krycek would have laughed aloud except that he was still shaking from yet another up-close and personal encounter with an alien. Gone, gone and far away, that's the only `benefit' He'd ever wanted from any of them. 

`Benefit'. Mulder processed the word. Benefit; profit, gain, advantage, do good for or to someone, to assist. The theme music from Aladdin began to tinkle off key in his mind while he visualized a blue Jeremiah Smith flitting around the grounds. 

"Mr. Mulder," Smith said calmly, "I am not a cartoon character. Mr. Krycek I will be far, far away soon enough." 

Krycek choked. 

Mulder jumped, wildly looked around for a moment, took a deep breath, and resumed his contemplation of Smith. 

"I never knew they were mind-readers too," both Mulder and Krycek thought in unison, though only Smith knew that, of course. 

Smith continued to speak in his soft unhurried way, "In the literature, mythology and popular media of your species there are virtually no examples of any particular good resulting from the application of wish fulfillment provided by an outside source on an individual. Thus, instead of whatever standard conception you may have of having a wish enacted, I have decided to return to you something that has been yours all along, albeit without your conscious perception of it. In keeping with your personal struggles and sacrifices to bring an end to the power of the Consortium, to end the enslavement of my species and bring these truths to the rest of mankind. 

I have carefully considered the appropriate actions to take and fulfill the debt. I am going to give you two things. The first is," Smith took hold of Krycek's right hand and Mulder's left hand. Krycek instinctively attempted to pull away but the hand in his held fast and emanated a cool serenity so he relaxed. Mulder also felt the cool serenity and tried to understand its source but his mind could not comprehend it and he too relaxed. "I will restore you to a state of health that will enable you to go forward as fully equipped to face your future as possible." The cool serenity permeated the entirety of Mulder and Krycek. "All minor internal damage and various viruses or pathogens have been erased. This does not restore you to youth or undo what surgeries or healed wounds have wrought but it will give you strength and confidence to know you are as healthy as possible. The second and perhaps greater gift is to return to you what you have attempted and been blocked from discerning all these years. I am going to give you the truth of your own lives, gentlemen, and the reality of your own past." 

The men sat on the shaded bench at the edge of the woods of the great estate in the Alps early in the summer of 1997 and were quiet. 

Neither Mulder nor Krycek attempted to immediately define what Smith's `gift' would entail for themselves or for them both. It was enough to contemplate that whoever they thought they were at this very minute and whatever they thought they knew was, had always been an illusion. Implicit in Smith's wording was the undeniable fact that each and by extension both, after the terrible, terrible price they had already paid, probably knew little if anything at all, about the truth. 

Smith began to speak again in his soft unhurried way, "Fox Mulder - Alex Krycek you are both arguably very strong human beings. In the history of your lives, you have survived mental anguish, physical torment, and emotional pain, any of which would have possibly broken most of your race. You have earned my respect and by example, my hope for the eventual survival of your species. I do not give you this gift lightly. I bestow it with honor." 

Smith paused momentarily "There is a house that was once used as a hunting lodge at the other edge of these woods, further up the mountain along this path," he said gesturing at the track at his feet, "I have arranged for that facility to be provisioned for as long as either or both of you elect to remain there. You may, gentlemen, claim that place for the remainder of your lives, if you wish. It is now your property. All of your current possessions, including the few you had with you in the chateau, have been transported to the lodge from your previous dwellings. The exception is your financial arrangements that stand as they were before. You have only to enter the lodge through the gates to receive the gift. You may, of course, singly or together choose not to go, refuse the gift, and continue as you are now. I have chosen this symbol on purpose. You will decide for yourselves whether they are the Gates of Heaven or the Gates of Hell. Perhaps they are both or neither. Fox Mulder, Alex Krycek, may you learn to benefit from this truth as you have benefited us with the revelation of ours." 

Jeremiah Smith rose to his feet and Mulder and Krycek did likewise. He offered his hand and perhaps his last touch with the human race to each in turn, walked into the wood, was enveloped in that particular light of the mothership, and disappeared from view. 

Mulder and Krycek stood at the edge of the wood. They watched the place Smith had been just a moment ago. In a lifetime of the surreal and the strange, this occurrence made it right up there at the top of the list. 

Mulder took a deep breath and took hold of Alex's hand. "Alex," he said clearly, "we haven't had that conversation about what happens next yet. I think we should have it now." 

Alex faced Mulder. "All I have ever owned, that has been mine is here," he put his fist to his heart and repeated "is here. All of it, including the vague memories of my mother and brother before they died, the horror of the place where I grew up after that, the education and training to serve the Consortium's agenda, the price of my enlightenment, the betrayal of that agenda has cost me," he tapped his fist on his heart repeatedly with each fact, "And you Mulder - you," he spread his hand, open now, over his heart. "I have nothing else: no friends or lovers to record my life and keep it alive in memory. I have produced nothing; no work, art, or family of my own to live on past this lifetime. I was going to leave you Mulder. I still may. However, you are the only one who will ever really know that I lived at all. That I bled - screamed and suffered. That I laughed - cried and loved. Whatever we learn, whatever you learn about me, on the other side of the gates that can never change. It is enough, Mulder and I am not afraid to go through." 

Mulder looked at Alex. Have I ever seen the whole man, he wondered? Had the whole man really even been there for him to see? Alternatively, was he, until now, only pieces of himself? A bigger more certain revelation bloomed in him. This man. Alex. Now, at last, was beloved entirely. Forever. Immutable. "We go through together Alex." 

"Yes," Alex replied. 

  
 

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Title:   **Detente**   
Author:  Flutesong   [email/website]   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **NC-17**  |  **36k**  |  **01/22/09**   
Pairings:  Mulder/Krycek   
Category:  Drama, Story, Romance, Relationship, RST, Adventure   
  
  
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